This blog by a Portsmouth (Virginia) civilian points up how valuable the concept of “listening” is to modern police departments—all departments, not just those who are engaging the public on social networking sites. At the very least, rudeness is a common complaint among civilians. “That cop acted like he didn’t get his donut this morning,”…
Category Archives: Reputation management
Why cops shouldn’t use social networking
In response to my question, “Do you think more LE don’t get on board w/ social media b/c they fear the inability to size ppl up as they would in person?” I got another response besides those from the previous entry: @cmouser: There are folks telling officers it not safe for them to do it…false…
Why aren’t more cops implementing social media?
Writing a blog entry, I began to speculate about why cops aren’t as involved with social media as, well, I think they should be. Was it the technology? The personal interaction? The anonymity? Or simply that they don’t yet understand it well enough? I didn’t have the experience to say authoritatively. So I opened it…
How few is too few?
Some law enforcement agencies may be reluctant to jump into social media because they are unsure of how many customers are really online. What’s the point, they reason, if they’re communicating with only a tiny fraction of the population they serve? It’s a valid point. Committing already-thin resources to something that may not pay off…
Experts: Branding opportunities in disguise
Much of the focus on law enforcement use of social media is on police departments as a whole. From a community-relations standpoint, this is important—but police departments may be missing out on a valuable opportunity to brand themselves and law enforcement in general. For that, they might consider turning to individual experts. What’s an individual…
Train for the cameras
American Police Beat’s recent blog about police pursuits (authored by Sgt. Timothy Long) caught my eye because of this passage: For the viewer, a police pursuit is a real-time drama with an unknown outcome…. But what if you are the one engaged in the pursuit? You and your decision-making capabilities are playing out for the…